Today comedy has become something of an industry in China with many people making profit from it.
On March 20, Wu Hongwen, the magistrate of Wanrong County, Yuncheng City of Shanxi Province, made a special trip with his colleagues to the prosperous coastal city of Shenzhen in south China’s Guangdong Province to promote hilarious jokes about his county to overseas Chinese and others. Now Wanrong County, nicknamed the “Joke Kingdom,” is developing comedy as an “industry” and has gained a reputation both in China and overseas Chinese communities.
Wangrong County is situated in the south of north China’s Shanxi Province at the juncture of the three provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi and Henan. It has a diversified local culture and a long tradition of folklore and folk literature tradition that are rich even today. Folk humor in particular is an essential and important part of its folklore heritage.
The comedy industry has played a unique role in boosting the local economy of Wanrong County. It has produced a series of tapes, CDs, postcards and books of local folk humor. Last year the county sold more than 5 million sets of joke CDs and the profit from the comedy industry amounted to 90 million yuan (US$10.87 million).
Some major commercial Internet portal sites in China such as Sohu and Sina have now begun hiring a number of employees who are responsible for providing or polishing jokes for them, according to executives of the sites. The need for humor and jokes is massive because the sites have to send daily updated short-message jokes to a large number of subscribers. Netease, another major Chinese portal site, has about 300,000 subscribers for short-message jokes. Most of the subscribers aged 18-25 consume at least 200,000 short-message jokes everyday, said Mao Mao, the press coordinator for the Short Message Center of the site.
Folklore has even carved out its own niche on the Chinese student campus. Folklore courses at the prestigious Beijing-based Peking University often attract many students because of the rich supply of proverbs, stories, jokes and customs in its classes as well as its interesting atmosphere. Students often collect folk jokes, games, proverbs and all sorts of things to do with folklore for their homework and are keen on exchanging their finds and ideas.
(北京晚报 [Beijing Evening News], translated for China.org.cn by Chen Chao, April 16, 2003)
